Where to buy Teslas in Uruguay: imported straight from China

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The Tesla Model 3 parked at AutoImport, a car dealership in the seaside port of Punta del Este, Uruguay, appeared flawless, except for one detail: The driver’s touch screen was set to China Standard Time.

“It’s the local time and weather from the place it comes from,” Ramiro Duer, owner of AutoImport, told Rest of World. “China is 11 hours ahead.”

Duer has been importing Teslas to Uruguay for a year, undertaking a complex process that starts in China — where half of all Teslas are manufactured. His business underscores how people in countries where Elon Musk’s company does not have an official presence have found creative ways to get their hands on the electric vehicle. The China time zone, weather settings, and foreign-language maps on the dozens of Teslas in Uruguay — a small South American nation of 3.4 million — serve as a constant reminder of the lengthy journeys the vehicles undertook to get to its shores.

“Customers are happy with these cars,” said Duer. “Families, single people, even elderly — one of our clients is 86 years old.”

Tesla’s inroads in South America have been slow. The company’s only official store in the region is in Chile. Other countries, like Colombia and Peru, have only a handful of Tesla cars.

Uruguay, a small country with a robust public charging network, tax cuts for EVs, and minimal bureaucratic hurdles for car imports, has become a natural landing pad for Teslas.

The country has been transitioning to green mobility for over a decade. More than 6,500 EVs were imported between 2020 and the first half of 2024, or 191 cars per every 100,000 inhabitants, according to a public information request by Rest of World.

AutoImport, a car dealership in Uruguay, has imported at least 80 Teslas in the past year. Courtesy of AutoImport

Every year, between 55,000 and 60,000 cars are sold in Uruguay, Christian Nieves, national director of energy at the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining, told Rest of World. “Now, 7% of those cars are EVs but we hope to reach 10% soon,” he said.

UTE, Uruguay’s government-owned energy company, has invested more than $2 million in charging infrastructure, and plans to make at least one charger available every 50 kilometers (around 30 miles) — or 370 across the country — by the end of 2024. Nearly 8,200 Uruguayans have signed up with UTE to charge their vehicles, Federico Ragni, UTE’s director of development and electric mobility deployment, told Rest of World.

Emmanuel Romano, an industrial engineer living in Paso de los Toros, in central Uruguay, said he owns one of the three EVs in the town of 13,000 people. He bought the Tesla from AutoImport and usually stops to charge it at a public charger when he drives to the capital Montevideo, around 270 kilometers away.

Romano’s neighbors, particularly children, look at his Tesla with fascination. “I don’t like attention, but it sparks interest,” he told Rest of World. “It’s a novelty.”

Some 340 kilometers south, in the glitzy coastal town of Punta del Este — a longtime magnet for wealthy Latin Americans — Teslas have become a regular sight in school parking lots and outside bars.

“Uruguay has always been ahead of the curve [in South America],” Martín Canabal, an Uruguayan industrial engineer, told Rest of World. In 2022, he bought a Tesla in San Francisco, where he lived at the time, and drove it from Alaska to South America when he moved back home. He’s a fan of Elon Musk, who he believes is “changing the world.”

According to Uruguay XXI, the government agency in charge of promoting exports and investments, Uruguay has imported nearly 80 Teslas between 2020 and July 2024 — of which 50 are from the U.S. The number might be higher: AutoImport alone has imported at least 80 Teslas in the past year. Drawn by lower costs, Duer has sourced his fleet from China. “Their prices are absolutely competitive,” he said.

50 kilometers The maximum distance between two charging points planned for Uruguay by the end of 2024.

In 2023, when Duer realized that people were bringing Teslas over individually — with no warranty policy, professional consulting, access to repair, or readily available replacement parts — he put together a plan to offer those services through AutoImport. Duer completed a meticulous documentation process which included obtaining the required importer authorizations, securing an affidavit from Tesla, and identifying suitable partners in China.

While the specifics of Duer’s arrangement with his Chinese partners are confidential due to a nondisclosure agreement, he said that customers purchase Teslas in local dealerships, which are supplied by dedicated agents in China. The agents are responsible for finding a spot on a ship and filling out the paperwork to ship the car to Uruguay, which can take several weeks. Once the vehicles arrive at the port in Montevideo, AutoImport drives them to the dealership.

Tesla did not respond to requests for comment from Rest of World.

AutoImport has several Teslas in stock for those who want to get their EVs overnight, said Duer.

Hilton Motors and Alta Gama, dealerships in Uruguay that also import Tesla, did not respond to interview requests from Rest of World.

In recent years, different administrations have made EV-car patents cheaper and boosted investments in the sector. Uruguay has also created programs to incentivize EVs through cash prizes of up to $3,000 for their owners, subsidized the use of EVs for taxis and public transport, and promoted the replacement of traditional cars for more sustainable options. There are now over 50 different EV car brands available in the country, including the popular Chinese-made BYD, which has set up 26 official dealerships across Uruguay.

In February, the Investment Law Application Commission, a group within the Ministry of Economy and Finance, lowered the import threshold for EV tax benefits to $30,000 — down from $40,000. These tax benefits aren’t available for most Teslas — some of which go for as much as $90,000 — but that hasn’t put a damper on the demand for Musk’s vehicles.

“There are others,” said Canabal, “but you won’t find anything like a Tesla.”

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